THE GOD OF THE CHIMNEYS

What are the Jews after all? A people that
can’t sleep and let nobody else sleep.

—ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER, The Family Moskat

 

 

 

For what angry God
arching backward over the world,
his anus spitting
fire, the fetid breath of his mouth
propelling blood-colored clouds,
his navel full of burnt pitch and singed feathers,
have we given our eyes, our teeth,
our eyeglasses, bales of our hair,
and the magic of our worthless gold?

 

For what angry God
who tested Job,
and Abraham,
Moses, Esther,
Judith with the severed head of Holofernes—
for what atonement do we walk
again and again
into the ovens?

 

. . .

 

Invited with our industry,
our instruments—
bookbinding, goldhammering,
silversmithing—
given a ghetto, gold stars, curfews,
after some centuries,
we burst its seams
with our children and riches.
Then we are invited
into the ovens to die,
leaving our gold molars behind.

 

Who are the Jews after all—
but a people without whom
we would have to confront
the void in our own echoing hearts?

 

The symbol of our phoenix yearning
to rise
on the ashes of death?

 

People of the dream,
moving through history’s
insomnia,
people who can’t sleep.